8 Proven Methods for Enhancing Website User Engagement

Being an important determinant in deciding the ranking of your website, User Engagement of a site requires all the attention it can get. The internet is literally a dog-eat-dog world for competitors in constant pursuit to challenge and beat out other websites the competition. Winning the traffic is one thing, but attracting and retaining your users is something that has other alternatives to its purpose. Hence, website user engagement has to be generated to beat the competition and make the best out of your visitors.

This is how it goes. More user engagement means more conversions and more sales, and more sales lead to increased revenues, which is the primary objective of any e-commerce website. You cannot sell your products without creating user engagement for your website. If a customer comes to your website and leaves immediately, the bounce rates increase since abandonments negatively affect the website rankings. Here are eight methods you should invest your time and resources in to produce organic user engagement on your website.

1. Improve Page Loading Time :

Have you ever heard of the story about a Rabbit and a Tortoise that go for a race? If you haven’t, let me tell you that the Rabbit, despite being a faster competitor, loses the race to the slower Tortoise in a moral lesson of patience and self-composure. However, in the online web industry, it is quite the opposite when it comes to speed. Being faster means faster here, and slowing down even for a second can mean your death.

Slow website loading is the biggest culprit in destroying user engagement on websites. No matter how updated or elegantly designed your website might be, it will still suffer increased bounce rates because the user will never get the chance to see it. According to a survey by Soasta, there is a 56% increased chance of bounce rate if the website fails to open and loads a second slower. An Akamai study has shown that nearly 40% are at high risk of abandoning their web pages if they fail to load before 3 seconds. To fix this, have your developers look at your website performance and remove any bugs or glitches that might be causing the lag.

2. Add Internal Linking Structure :

Internal linking is an effective technique to improve user engagement on your website. It connects your visitors to important content that helps increase page views of your website. But internal linking shouldn’t always be about generating page views. Creating content that helps the user information with helpful aspects and then anchoring it with keywords is the best way to generate views for SEO rankings while maintaining a reliable internal linking structure for the navigation of your website. But while you’re at it, keep it on a modest level. Avoid overdoing it, as it will appear as spamming and damage your website image.

3. Show Related Content :

Another important practice that helps engage users while promoting other pages of your website through content is showing ‘related posts.’ It is similar to internal linking, except that you display the link at the end of the page. Customers eager to learn more about your products or services will find the related content interesting and click on the links at the end of the page. According to research, most customers who have already read your post till the end tend to read more if presented with related content. Cash in this opportunity and introduce links to help your users navigate new pages. You can also use third-party plugins to automate the process -  an investment that will pay off.

4. Navigation Menu :

A reliable and self-spoken menu for your website navigation is imperative for generating user engagement. Like everyone else, your audience is composed of human beings who will judge you on every inch of your website, and that is why you must never give them a reason to dislike you when getting the first impression.

Some websites are resilient to user engagement because their poor navigation features prevent customers from finding what they are looking for. Your website menu should be simple enough to interact with yet elegant enough to attract visitors into its fold. Ask your developers to throw in a few extra graphic effects and speed up the loading time, so the user has no excuse to abandon the page. Make a neat work out of your website without spending too much on the design. Remember, a website is only strongest as its weakest feature – and that, sir, is the navigation menu.

5. Build it in Responsive Design :

Keeping your website updated with the latest trends is essential for leading the competition. Every trend has a significant effect on the SEO rankings of your website if you execute them properly. With technology at its peak of development, cellular technology has given birth to a new prospect of digital marketing. Smartphones have emerged in all sizes and feature well within the affordable range of everyone. With their use and popularity skyrocketing, the need for responsive design has grown exponentially. Businesses need their websites to be accessible by every means possible and responsive design ensures the website is scalable and functional on every screen size, from handheld devices to desktop screens. By integrating responsive design, you are securing the customers who use smartphones more often and retaining those who use other devices such as tablets, laptops and desktops. According to a survey report by Statistics, 52.7% of the world’s population uses smartphones to access the internet.

6. Use Personas :

Learn to adapt to the changing needs of your audience. Without knowing how the user will respond to your content, you simply cannot devise a user engagement strategy that works. In order to be prepared and preemptive in creating an effective strategy, use personas to supplement your customers' needs. Personas are a fictional representation of the ideal buyer of your website. Using these personas, you can test drive new trends for user engagement before actually implementing them to your live platform. This reduces the probability of error and helps attract more customers to your products for better revenues.

7. Create Contests :

Last but not least, this method is the king of producing the best user engagement. It works on the simple principle of giving and taking. Organizing contests, giveaways, and lucky draws allow users to interact with your website better than all techniques combined. These events attract not only truckloads of traffic but also potential buyers, which increase your sales revenues. It gives a valued response to the user that prompts a feeling of appreciation. Tapping new channels, such as social media, is the fastest and most effective means to spread your campaigns. You can post contests on Facebook and set prizes and gifts for the participants.

8. Content Sharing :

Online marketing is all about getting the best out of your niche. But while you are trying to convince others how much of a good merchant you are, others might beg to differ. Others might also be selling the same products that you sell and damage the customer base you need.

Hence a diplomatic solution that makes room for others renders them on the best of their behavior while you get most of the attention from the audience; we call it sharing. It’s the safest and the most tactful means to pump the engagement game whenever you think it needs a nudge.

It detonates a bomb of comments, page views and authority towards your website without going into bad blood with your peers. You can’t be a hermit forever; think of it as on-page social media that pays off well. The sense of appreciation that springs from it create ripples that come back to you when you hit a rough patch. For instance, the good interactive piece article you shared will not tell how much you liked it. Reach out to a good online community member and point them out where they landed on your website. The effort is a one-time investment that will keep filling your blogs and articles with comments and helpful tidbits – a currency that can be traded for website authority.

Conclusion :

Good user engagement shows how well the website is performing but also determines the quality of content the website has. Each of these eight tips affects the rankings in its own way; without one, the other cannot function to its full spectrum. The content is useless without a short loading time, and without navigation, the internal linking is ineffective. Each of them works as cogs connected to each other and performs in a synchronized manner. Adding these methods to your marketing strategy will give your website a better chance against its peers.

Subscribe to weekly updates

You’ll also receive some of our best posts today